CECCONI-BATES, Augusta

Augusta Cecconi-Bates is an American composer and librettist born in Syracuse, New York. She studied at Syracuse University and later studied composition at Cornell University with Robert Palmer and Karel Husa. Her catalogue comprises approximately 200 works, including operas, operettas, cantatas, orchestral and wind-ensemble music, chamber works and songs. Text and narrative are central to her music, which frequently explores war, discrimination, Indigenous history and the landscapes of northern New York. Representative compositions include the anti-war cantata War Is Kind, the operas Molly of the Mohawks and Vancouver’s Poet, We Have a Dream, Tug Hill Suite and Essences of the North Country.